‘And the sale of the plantation? This is connected to the divorce?’ A rather shady area for me. Possibly I shouldn’t have asked. But I was curious you see. Anyone would have been curious.
She said then that she was planning to leave Samoa, but that she wanted it kept a secret for the moment. She wanted to make sure that the plantation was hers to sell and that she need not share the proceeds with Stuart. The house in Apia she thought she might keep meantime, but the house and all the buildings on the plantation would go with the sale of the land. Clearly, she had thought it all out.
I was astonished. ‘I thought you were settling really well,’ I said. ‘Congratulations, by the way, on the performance at the Tivoli. You really made a big difference. We’ll miss you,’ I added.
‘You’re going,’ she said rather pointedly.
‘Elena will miss you. You and she make a great team.’
‘Elena’s going back too,’ she said. ‘For a while anyway. They want her back in New Zealand for something.’
I hadn’t heard that. But Elena was always coming and going. She’d be back.
Jeanie brought me back to the matter in hand. Did she have a right, she wanted to know, to refuse Stuart entry to her house? To the plantation?
Oh dear, oh dear. I certainly didn’t want to be dragged into this! Technically, I suppose she might. Both were in her name and very recently inherited. But it would surely be looked on as unkind to lock out a returning invalid who was still, in fact, married to her.
Jeanie frowned and bit her lip. She seemed to have no feeling at all that she was being unkind.
I pointed out that Stuart would possibly have no means of support if she insisted on selling the plantation and refusing him entry to the house. He might have some legal redress, as her partner of some years (only four, she was quick to point out) to some share of the plantation sale. I was quite shocked, to be honest, that she was able to harden her heart so.
Jeanie looked at me squarely. I think she realised how my mind was running.
‘What if I paid for a room at the hotel for him? The plantation could do that for him.’
I agreed that that would ease the matter, certainly.
Jeanie seemed to need, then, to persuade me that she had right on her side. She explained that Stuart had been a disaster on the plantation – too forceful in his dealings with the workforce. (‘He hit them too,’ she said, ‘and let them know he carried a gun.’) I was not quite sure she told the truth. His temper and impatience, she said, got in the way of good plantation practice and production went down when he was in charge.
Suddenly she seemed to lose patience with the whole conversation. She stood up and walked to the open door. Outside the midday downpour had just begun. Her voice was all but drowned in the roar.
‘Why does he have to come back?’ she said. ‘How can he think we can go on together? He knows I can’t stand him any more.’ She ran her hands through her hair and shuddered. ‘Can’t stand him anywhere near me.’
A crack of thunder underlined her mood. It was so perfectly timed I had to smile. She turned on me, fierce as a cat. ‘Hamish, this is no laughing matter. I am desperate, in case you haven’t noticed. Desperate. I never thought he would have the nerve to come back.’
Perhaps she felt she had been too outspoken. The rain and her outburst stopped at the same time. As the trees dripped outside and the sun reappeared, she sat again and we talked quite calmly about selling the plantation and the possibility of citing cruelty in a divorce proceeding. Certainly Simone and I had seen evidence of his violence towards her. If there was something she was holding back, it was none of my business. So I thought.
After she left, I had a rather cowardly thought, and looked up the Act to make sure my memory was correct. Indeed it was. Since Jeanie and Stuart were married in New Zealand, and had lived in Samoa for less than two years, any divorce proceedings would need to be dealt with in New Zealand. Rightly or wrongly, I decided to put all knowledge of divorce out of my head and to go ahead with the sale of my client’s plantation.
Naturally enough, Stuart’s return and rejection was the talk of the town. His appearance in the first month or two was rather gruesome – it was difficult to look at him squarely. The reconstructed ear swollen and red, the skin a different, furrier texture, the whorls quite imprecise. Simone felt the doctors had been foolish to try. ‘Those men they just want to experiment for their own glory, then when it turns out ugly, send him away back to Samoa where no one will criticise!’ She had a point, though it became very clear he had come back of his own volition – earlier perhaps than his plastic surgeon may have wished. The hand had not been saved. Some days he wore a stuffed glove. Mostly he let the raw stump show.
Jeanie had gone ahead and reserved a room for him at the Casino. She didn’t meet him. Simone knew about Jeanie’s arrangements, approving her strong stand against such a bully. I must admit I felt sorry for the fellow. It didn’t seem right. He was an invalid, for heaven’s sake. Surely, he deserved some common courtesy, for a few weeks at least.
Stuart must have come on Polynesian Airlines because there was no boat that week. He arrived next door in a taxi, clearly in a bad mood. Who wouldn’t be, having suffered the road from Faleolo in a Samoan taxi? He slammed the car door and shouted for Jeanie before even reaching the steps. Simone hurried to the verandah – shamefully eager to watch the explosions.
‘He knows what to expect,’ my wife muttered. ‘Jeanie has written all to him. Why has he not gone to the hotel?’
Jeanie did not appear. Stuart stumped up the steps with his case, banged it down on the verandah floor and wrenched at the door. Not a sound from inside. Even I was drawn into the drama by this time. Stuart hammered on the door, which was clearly locked. He disappeared around the back and we heard further shouts and hammering. The housegirl wasn’t there either it seemed.
‘He knows, he knows,’ moaned Simone. ‘Stupid man, go away.’
There was no sound for a while. Perhaps he was trying windows. Was Jeanie inside, hiding, or had she gone up to the plantation? Neither of us knew. Stuart came into sight again. He looked up and caught us prying. By this time I was wishing I was somewhere quite different. Something about the man was rather terrifying.
Over he came, a beeline through our hedge and across the lawn. I started to move inside but Simone, without a word for once, put out an arm to hold me. We both waited there as he stumped up the steps.
‘Hamish!’ he said, quite genial, holding out a hand which I shook. It was as if the last ten minutes’ ranting and frustration had never existed. But he had seen us! ‘Simone!’ For a moment I believe he thought of kissing her. ‘How good to see you again. Please forgive the appearance. The surgeon assures me the swelling and scarring will fade.’
There was an awkward moment as he waited, perhaps expecting to be invited in. Indeed I would have, if Simone had not spoken first.
‘Your wife is not in I think,’ she said. A flat, matter-of-fact statement; not welcoming at all.
Her tone seemed to make no impression. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you have a spare key? She’s locked the door.’
‘But Stuart,’ said my fearless wife, ’she has written to you, no? There is a room for you at the Casino, no? She has said you two are separating? So sorry, to hear this, but you will be comfortable enough at the hotel.’
She can take your breath away, Simone. I admit I could scarcely breathe for fear of what would come next. I laid a hand on her arm, which she ignored. Stuart ignored me too. The two of them were involved in some kind of ritual in which I had ceased to exist.
‘No, no, no,’ said that poor, ugly man, still smiling. ‘Nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. She must have forgotten the day. You don’t have a key? I had thought …’
In fact, we did have a key, but Simone was shaking her head. ‘Hamish will drive you down to the hotel if you would like. Jeanie said it was booked in your name.’
He stood there looking at he
r. No expression at all now, the geniality gone but no hint of anger. This was the first time I felt afraid for Jeanie. Perhaps the accident had damaged the mind. Something mad in that blank look.
But he shook his head. ‘I’ll wait. She’ll be back soon.’ He looked at me expectantly.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I asked. How could I not? Simone could frown all she liked, but I had my scruples too. The man deserved a drink.
He smiled and came inside. Simone brought out a little food in the end, and Stuart had more than one whisky. Twice he went back across to check and returned smiling in a strange, disquieting way. When night fell, Simone took the matter in hand.
‘She is not coming, Stuart. I think you know this. You must accept the hotel.’
Then we saw the anger. Just a flash – widened eyes; tightened jaw. He stood abruptly and I moved to protect Simone. But he was gone, he and the suitcase, down the steps and into the night. Perhaps he slept on Jeanie’s verandah with the mosquitoes, because he was there again in the morning, banging on the door. After a while he gave up and busied himself lining up a row of pawpaw on a fallen stump.
‘Oh not again,’ muttered Simone.
Stuart’s wretched target practice. He liked to stand on the verandah and take pot shots at the pawpaw, slowly demolishing them until the stump was a glistening orange mess of fruit. In season he practised on mangos, which were smaller. Simone hated the waste, hated guns, hated the noise. She banged pots in the kitchen until it was over. Where he found his rifle was a mystery. Did he travel with it?
By mid-morning he came across again. I had not liked to leave Simone alone, so had delayed going to work. Stuart looked dreadful, unshaven, greyish skin, mad pale eyes.
‘She must be up at the plantation,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I ring?’
He must have rung five or six times but there was never a reply. I was beginning to feel rather desperate. Were we going to be stuck with him? Finally he accepted a ride to the hotel – ‘Just until I find out what has bloody happened. She must be somewhere.’
Simone said that a short half hour after I had driven him down, Jeanie turned up at the house. Goodness knows where she’d been – hiding inside or elsewhere. She didn’t tell even Simone.
That was only the beginning. Stuart stayed at the hotel, thank goodness, but turned up to the house almost every day, sometimes pleading, sometimes shouting. Often drunk. Once he came with a great bouquet of orchids. Jeanie never willingly let him in. Once he caught her off guard – forced his way past her and into the house. She ran out the back door, got into the car and drove away, with him running wildly down the drive after her. Later he returned to smash some furniture and crockery. He slept there for a couple of days, but the moment he went back to the hotel, Jeanie was there again, locking the door against him. By this time I had lost all sympathy for the fellow. He was making Jeanie’s life impossible; had become a degenerate stalker. No wonder she wanted rid of him. It was all highly embarrassing. He seemed to have lost touch with reality.
Stuart settled a little after about a month of this. The prowling visits became less frequent. It surprised me that he didn’t seek entry to the house legally. A petition may have been successful. Perhaps he had consulted another lawyer and been told to sort it out with the New Zealand justice system. I suspect the man was all bluster and lacked any drive of a constructive nature. He fell in with some of the harder drinkers at the Club; could be seen there most evenings in a jovial mood – to put it kindly. I wondered where the money came from; there was no evidence of a job. Giles – one of his drinking mates – said some of the men felt sorry for him and were ‘helping him out meantime’.
What he meant by ‘meantime’ became clear when Stuart visited me in my office one morning. This day he was reasonably presentable – clean shirt, freshly shaved, hair trimmed. For some reason I found his genial moods more intimidating than his belligerence.
‘Hamish!’ he said. ‘Sorry to come unannounced. Mind if I have a word?’
I gestured him to a chair.
‘Man to man?’ he asked.
I took this to mean off the record and unpaid. ‘I’m acting for your wife,’ I said pointedly. The fellow had been in law; he would know the rules.
‘Well, exactly,’ he ploughed on, settling into the chair and smiling at me in a knowing way. ‘The thing is, I’m short of cash. I imagine as her husband, I’m entitled to some of the income from the plantation?’
I cleared my throat, shuffled some papers while I thought. ‘She still pays your hotel bill?’
‘Well, yes.’ He waved the stump of his wrist as if dismissing this contribution. ‘But a fellow has other expenses. Especially an invalid. Jeanie is upset in some way – goodness knows what’s got into her head. She’s avoiding me.’ He leaned forward as if to include me in a significant truth. ‘You know, I wonder whether she has inherited her father’s depressive tendencies. She’s been acting most strangely.’
I tried to laugh at that. ‘Jeanie is certainly in her right mind. Very much so. I wouldn’t try that one on, Stuart.’
He leaned back, then. Looked at me in a calculating way. My hands were sweating. What was it about him that frightened me so much? A sort of stillness, I think. A bland intensity of expression that somehow threatened to break into violence. He was holding himself back and the effort showed.
‘You need your own lawyer,’ I said, wanting to get him out of the room. ‘When the plantation sells, he may be able to argue a portion of the value coming to you.’ I wanted to say small portion – or tiny. But I was suddenly desperate to see the back of him. He wouldn’t stay in control long, I felt.
He looked at me in amazement. ‘There’s no question of selling. Jeanie and I are here for the long haul, Hamish.’ He rose thrusting out his good hand. ‘Have a word about some cash will you? We shouldn’t need to resort to legal process.’ He looked at me pointedly, ‘Let’s have no nastiness.’
The threat was clear and we both knew it.
After Stuart left, I sat there thinking. I couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t heard that the plantation was on the market. It would be discussed at the Club, surely. Freehold plantations didn’t come up for sale often. Jeanie’s desire for divorce would also be common knowledge. Simone and her friends would have dissected it fully by now over their morning teas and during Simone’s weekly callisthenics classes in our garden. Perhaps their husbands would avoid that topic in Stuart’s presence, but he knew. Jeanie herself had made it clear, both in letters and in legal form. Either Stuart was playing a part, or he was in complete denial. I would have to be careful to protect Jeanie and her interests. Stuart, I felt, could play very dirty if forced out of his mind-set.
Simone asked me, a few days later, whether Jeanie was planning to leave Samoa.
‘I feel it,’ she pronounced. ‘I can feel some change in her. Hamish I should know. Her good friend.’
I tried to prevaricate; tried to turn the conversation, but bluster has no effect at all on Simone. ‘So it is true,’ she cried. ‘She has to get away from that man! So how can we help her, Hamish? How?’
I had been helping her in secret for some time. The last thing we needed was for Simone to find out. I pleaded with her for her silence. ‘You are quite right my dear, as usual. She plans to go I believe, but she needs it to be a complete surprise to Stuart. He must not follow her. You would understand.’
‘But of course I understand, you stupid man. I will breathe no word. You will see that I can keep a secret as well as you.’ She patted my cheek in a rather demeaning way and headed for the garden. I was sure she had something in mind and was immediately anxious.
The weeks that followed were ominously devoid of her questions and opinions. I found out later that she was busily spreading counter information to her circle of friends. Jeanie had been offered a job at the hospital; Jeanie would be travelling back and forth from Savai‘i on medical business so might not be seen for days or weeks sometimes; Jeanie had decide
d to take in boarders at the big house (this to discourage Stuart from arriving at all hours of the day and night). She even invented an imminent family visit from her Aunt Mary. I heard all these stories second-hand from various men at the club, without realising they originated in Simone’s fertile imagination. She was having fun. Perhaps she and Jeanie were laughing together and inventing new lies.
Meantime, I was completing a very successful sale of the plantation. The wider Levamanaia ‘aiga had joined forces and come up with a fair sum. The plantation would be in one piece again (and no doubt Gertrude would be raging from beyond the grave!). Jeanie would be quite well off. She arranged for a modest sum to be kept in my legal account to be paid to Stuart some weeks after she left. In my mind, there was no question of an equal division. She had inherited directly from her father only months earlier.
Once she popped into the office wanting to know about changing her name. ‘Can it be done simply?’ she asked. ‘Can it be made untraceable?’
I assured her that it was easy enough to simply change your name. Any bank, when she arrived back in New Zealand would probably happily open an account for her in any name she chose. But to do it legally, I told her, by deed poll, would be traceable. Records would be kept.
She looked at me in that stubborn, determined manner that I had begun to dread.
‘Could I change my passport, so there was no record of my entry into New Zealand?’
She was trying to draw me into shady areas, and I would not be drawn there. No, I told her; that would be illegal. That would be forgery. I began to fear her questions, you see. She didn’t seem to care about legality. Making a clean break from Stuart seemed, in her eyes, to justify any means. And she tried to make me feel that it was my duty to help her escape.
She changed tack. What would be the least traceable way of leaving the country? By plane or sea? I thought slipping quietly onto the banana boat at the last minute might be better than flying. Everyone knew who was arriving and leaving at Faleolo Airport. Flying was the favoured dramatic exit overseas for study or work. Crowds gathered with flowers and necklaces of shells to farewell the lucky few who flew away. The handful of tourists on the banana boat were usually foreigners. Jeanie could disembark at Fiji if she chose to, if the boat was going that way.
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